


overkill

by humanveil



Category: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Exes, M/M, Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 22:51:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13041159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanveil/pseuds/humanveil
Summary: “That’s enough.”





	overkill

**Author's Note:**

> honestly, i don't know. i'm working through my feelings about tlj one ficlet at a time.

Rapid fire rings in Kylo’s ears, his gaze fixed on the red smoke which covers the spot Skywalker had stood. His body is shaking, overcome with emotions he can’t place as he watches his uncle die. The smoke only grows as their fire holds up, the cloud of red stark against the white of Crait.

There is no chance that Skywalker is still alive, not now, not when their weapons have painted the ground to look like blood. He ought to pull back, to give the command to stop. Kylo knows this, somewhere inside of him, somewhere within his muddled thoughts. And yet he doesn’t do it; too distracted by the emotion of it, too caught up in his own rage, his own personal attachment.

_“That’s enough.”_

Hux’s voice cuts through the fire like a blade, his tone low, throaty, meant only for Kylo’s ears. There is an underlying softness to it, one that sounds out of place in the midst of battle, and yet it is a softness that Kylo had once known well; a gentleness which had filled many long nights spent only with each other, one he had cherished, endlessly smug that he, of all people, had managed to bring it out of the General.

It is not something he has heard in a long time, not something he expects to hear now.

Hux is standing behind him, Kylo can feel it—can feel his breath as he speaks the words. The whisper is an opportunity, Kylo knows. A chance to give the command himself, to prove his competency as Supreme Leader. He should take it, but he doesn’t, can’t bring himself to. He wants to obliterate Luke; wants to ensure that nothing remains.

Hux’s words hang in the space between them, their machinery filling the silence that follows. Hux waits, expectant, but Kylo does not move. It’s only seconds before Hux steps up, before he takes action.

_“THAT’S ENOUGH!”_

His scream echoes in the shuttle, and _this_ Hux is more familiar; the underlying frustration a new normal, something he had long-since grown used to. He has a half-thought, an unfinished wonder if Hux had undergone the same transformation with him, if he had revisioned Kylo the same way Kylo had done him. If he had expelled every fond memory and replaced it with something darker, something hateful.

Kylo had no doubt given him enough to choose from. That thought is only slightly bitter.

Their fire ceases almost immediately after Hux’s command, and it makes something snap in Kylo, manages to pull him from his trance. He steps away, falls back into a chair, his jaw clenched as he looks to the ground, his hands shaky as they curl over the curve of his knees.

He feels rather than sees Hux turn to him, can tell the sarcastic quip is coming before it does. Kylo ignores the question as it falls from Hux’s lips, his mind preoccupied with only one thought.

_How did they end up here?_

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/irnstrk) / [tumblr](http://humanveil.tumblr.com/)


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